Links between Environment Movement and Kremlin

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On July 30 2014 the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a
Minority Staff report titled “The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and
Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA.”

The 92–page report details a dizzy web of “dark money” from foreign investments to the American environmental movement through a foundation called Sea Change Foundation. At one point, the authors identify the limitations of their report:

“While this report sheds significant light on the who and the how, the truly outrageous nature of these complex arrangements are only understood by exploring the why. This report articulates several possible reasons for the convoluted and secretive structure of the far-left environmental movement; yet, at the end of the day, we are still asking – why? Why are members of the Billionaire’s Club going to such extreme lengths to hide their generous support of supposed charitable causes?”

In the below report, we believe we have taken an important step toward answering that question with
new information and never-before-identified players and connections.

Our report begins where the Senate report ended, with Klein Ltd. Klein Ltd., a corporation that “only exists on paper” and is based out of a Bermuda law firm called Wakefield Quin, gave $23 million dollars to environmental bundler Sea Change Foundation from 2010 to 2011, which has given tens of millions to other U.S. environmental groups. While it is unclear who is funding Klein, the law firm controlling this shady offshore funder of the U.S. environmental movement has ties to Russian money
laundering, a friend and advisor of Vladimir Putin, Russian oil production, and more.

According to its Articles of Incorporation, Klein was formed by two employees of Wakefield Quin
(WQ), a Bermuda law firm. A Klein director and WQ senior counsel, along with another WQ senior
counsel, have pasts that should be considered questionable at best. Both held directorship positions
in a group, owned by Russian minister of telecommunications and longtime Putin friend Leonid
Reiman, which was the subject of a 2008 money laundering case. The group was ultimately convicted
in British Virgin Islands court.

WQ’s Russian involvement doesn’t stop there. Marcuard Spectrum, a Moscow-based investment firm, operates a hedge fund in Bermuda based out of WQ’s office. Both of the aforementioned WQ lawyers are listed in leadership positions. Further, one of the founders of Marcuard is also the chair of Russian-owned oil giant Rosneft.

There have been significant questions about whether foreign interests—particularly Russian—are funding attacks on U.S. natural gas because it would hurt the Kremlin. Here we have a major foreign funder of the U.S. environmental movement tied through its Bermuda office to Russian money laundering and the Russian government.